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Upcoming Summer Events

With summer break officially underway for our kids, we have sent out our youth mission team to RENEW, and we are finishing up preparations for our Vacation Bible School on June 25 - 29 (kicked off a little early with our parade float on June 22!). While RENEW and VBS are of course our major focus for the summer, we have a lot of great opportunities coming up over the next couple of months.

On Saturday, July 7, join us for a picnic, time of fun (and possible wild berry picking) and a short hike in the woods. Rain date will be July 14. Let me know if you are interested.

On July 8 following worship and coffee fellowship, we invite all of our seniors and retirees to stay for a soup and sandwich lunch and a few games of bingo complete with fun prizes! Please let me know if you are interested so we can get a head count for lunch.

On July 15, we welcome a praise dance team that one of our children participates in to lead our worship with a program entitled "The Prodigal."

On Sunday, August 12, we will host a Back-to-School Bingo for kids of all ages. Prizes will include school supplies to help kids and their families prepare for the new school year!

Hope to see you for these wonderful programs! Blessings on the journey, Jim

Sunday's Sermon Snippet

Siblings - despite the blessing they are - can be hard to get along with, and indeed sibling rivalries are as old as time. The Bible is full of such rivalries. The relationship between Mary and Martha is no exception. Jesus comes to their home to visit. Mary sits at Jesus' feet listening and enjoying the visit. Martha works hard in the kitchen to offer the best hospitality she can. Martha, however, sees her sister doing nothing to help, and it burns within her until it spills out. "Jesus, tell my sister to help me!" Jesus points out Martha's many distractions and praises Mary for having chosen the better part - the one thing needed. The typical reading of this story invites us to choose who we identify with: Martha, the overly busy, hard-working one who is always distracted, or Mary, the seemingly lazy sister who finally gets her moment in the spotlight just for doing nothing but sitting at Jesus' feet. This reading, however, does not do justice to either sister. Martha's shortcoming in this incident is not her work ethic but how it distracts her. Mary is not lazy but rather one who connects emotionally. For a contrast, we find that, when their brother Lazarus dies and Jesus arrives seemingly too late to help, it is Martha who goes to meet Jesus and be with him. Mary, overwhelmed by her grief, stays home until summoned by Jesus. These sisters have different personalities and thus have different gifts to offer Jesus. Martha is a hard worker, and her work is her gift. Mary is the more relational of the two, and her gift is the time spent listening to Jesus. The one thing that Martha lost sight of was her relationship with Jesus. She forgot that the hospitality she was working to provide was a gift she wanted to give Jesus. She was distracted by all the details and finally by the fact that her sister did not help her in giving this gift. She did not realize that the gift of hospitality was her own gift to give - not Mary's. Mary was giving her gift of attention to Jesus. How often do we lose sight of the one thing needed - our relationship with Jesus - because we grow distracted by how others are or are not serving Jesus? How often do we forget that we each have a different gift to give Jesus because God has given each of us different skills, personalities, and indeed spiritual gifts? How often do we let the fact that others are giving Jesus a different gift than we are diminish our own gift? It should not be so! We do not need to worry about how much time or money others give, how much faith others have, how they believe, or how they live out their faith. These things do not make our own gifts any less to Jesus, unless we let those things distract us from offering our own gifts with our whole hearts. Offer your gift to Jesus, and do not lose sight of the one thing that matters most - a relationship with Jesus and your relationship with your brothers and sisters through him!

Summer Bible Reading Plan

This summer, Port Church is having its reading club with prizes for all ages! See the attached reading plan for more details. This week's readings are:Day 1 - Genesis 1 -A Book of BeginningsDay 2 - Genesis 2 - One Shining MomentDay 3 - Genesis 3 - The FallDay 4 - Genesis 7 - Under WaterDay 5 - Genesis 8 - The RainbowDay 6 - Genesis 27 - Jacob Gets the BlessingDay 7 - Genesis 37 - Family BattlesThis week's readings focus on the beginnings of the world and how God chose a special family to become the ancestors of God's chosen people. Though God made the world and called it good, people repeatedly made bad decisions that threatened that goodness. All the while, God worked on a plan to bring redemption through a chosen people, sometimes despite their own failings.